Testbed and Methods

We tested the cooling efficiency of SilverStone Tundra TD01 liquid-cooling system only in a closed testbed for logical reasons. The air cooler, just like the competitor we picked for it in our today’s test session was tested in two modes: in an open testbed when the mainboard is horizontal and the coolers are in vertical position, and in a closed system case with the mainboard positioned vertically.

We put together the following testbed for our experiments:

• Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 mainboard on Intel X38 chipset (LGA 775, BIOS F8D)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 (3.0GHz, 1.25V, 2x6MB L2 cache, 4x333MHz FSB, Yorkfield, C0)
• Thermal interface: Arctic Silver 5
• Graphics card: LeadTek WinFast PC8800 GTS 512MB / 256bit, 650/1800/1940MHz
• Memory:
  • 2 x 1024MB DDR2 Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-9136C5D (1142MHz / 5-5-5-18 / 2.1V);
  • 2 x 1024MB DDR2 CSXO-XAC-1200-2GB-KIT DIABLO (1200MHz / 5-5-5-16 / 2.4V).
• Memory cooler: CoolIt RAMFan (70x15mm, ~1800RPM)
• Disk subsystem: Samsung HD501LJ (SATA-II, 500GB storage capacity, 7200rpm, 16MB cache, NCQ)
• Optical drive: Samsung SH-S183L SATA-II DVD RAM & DVD±R/RW & CD±RW
• System case: System case: ASUS ASCOT 6AR2-B Black&Silver (ATX) with 120mm ~900RPM Scythe Minebea fans for air intake and exhaust, and a 120mm ~900RPM GlacialTech SilentBlade GT12025-BDLA1 fan on a side panel
• Control and monitoring panel: Zalman ZM-MFC2
• Power supply: Enermax Galaxy EGA1000EWL 1000W (a default 135mm ~850RPM fan for intake; 80mm ~15500RPM Noctua fan for air exhaust)

Using the weakest cooling system of our today’s testing participants we managed to overclock our quad-core processor only to 3.8GHz with the Vcore increased to 1.5V. The monitoring utility reported the core voltage setting a little bit lower than what was set in the mainboard BIOS: around 1.45~1.475V.

All tests were performed under Windows XP Professional Edition SP2. SpeedFan 4.34 Beta 38 was used to monitor the temperature of the CPU, reading it directly from the CPU core sensor:

Its readings matched those of the Core Temp 0.96.1 utility. The mainboard’s automatic fan speed management system was disabled for the time of the tests in the mainboard BIOS. The CPU thermal throttling was controlled with Intel Thermal Analysis Tool (TAT), because RightMark CPU Clock Utility of the latest version available at the time of tests didn’t support Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor:

The CPU was heated up with OCCT (OverClock Checking Tool) version 1.1.1b in a 23-minute test with maximum CPU utilization, during which the system remained idle in the first and last 4 minutes of the test:

I performed at least two cycles of tests and waited for approximately 20 minutes for the temperature inside the system case to stabilize during each test cycle. The stabilization period in an open testbed with the mainboard in horizontal and coolers in a vertical position took about half the time. The maximum temperature of the hottest CPU core of the four in the two test cycles was considered the final result (if the difference was no bigger than 1°C – otherwise the test was performed at least once again). Despite the stabilization period, the result of the second test cycle was usually 0.5-1°C higher.

The noise level of each cooler was measured according to our traditional method described in the previous articles with the help of an electronic noise meter – CENTER-321. We have reduced the subjectively comfortable noise level from the previously used 36dBA to 34.5dBA and is marked with a dotted line in the diagram. The ambient noise from the system case without the CPU cooler didn’t exceed 33.2dBA when measured at 1m distance.

The ambient temperature was checked with an electronic thermometer that allows monitoring the temperature changes over the past 6 hours. During our test session room temperatures stabilized at around 25°C. It is used as a staring point on the diagrams. Note that the fan rotation speeds as shown in the diagrams are the average readings reported by SpeedFan, and not the official claimed fan specifications.

We decided to have Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme compete with our today’s testing participants in the efficiency and noise level tests. It was equipped with a 120mm Scythe Minebea fan with the official rotation speed of ~1900RPM:

SilverStone Nitrogon NT06-Lite was tested with the same fan, though not only at its maximum rotation speed, but also at the speed of ~1200RPM with moderate acoustic outcome.